Hospital uses densifier to recycle Styrofoam

Baltimore Washington Medical Center's machine is only one in Md.

The cafeteria and food services department at the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center uses a lot of Styrofoam and to preserve the environment, implemented a Styrofoam recycling program.

"It's mostly air, it doesn't use any natural resources to produce, it's low in cost and it has good insulating factors. Plastic and paper products don't insulate, and it provides heat retention for us when we're sending things out of the department," explained campus nutrition services spokeswoman Chris Goglia.

To reduce the department's waste, workers are able to recycle the Styrofoam like they do with paper, plastic and aluminum thanks to a densifier machine that's lease Dart Container Corporation on a monthly basis. It's the only one of its kind in the state.

"It's like a big trash compactor. It basically compresses all the air out of it, and it makes 8,000 8-oz cups into about a 15x15 inch ring for easy transportation," said Dart Container Corporation spokesman Chris White.

The program doesn't take any extra manpower. The department already sorts its trash into bins for bottles and cans, so it added an extra one for Styrofoam.

Once the used Styrofoam is sorted, it gets dumped into the densifer and is condensed. Dart picks up the cylinders for them.

"The cylinders are taken back to our recycling facility. They're washed, cleaned, fluffed and dried, and they're turned back into polystyrene pellets," White said.

Those pellets are then used to make anything with polystyrene, such as chair and crown molding, CD cases and picture frames. Those who use the densifier said it's easy and well worth the benefit to the environment.

"We wanted to take care of the environment. We wanted to remove these products from the landfill and reduce our trash output," Goglia said.

Since the program started a month and a half ago, the campus has already recycled 320 pounds of Styrofoam and hopes to get up to at least 3,000 pounds by the end of the year.